ELEPHANT MONEY BOX
These elephant money boxes were designed by Bernd Diefenbach in 1972 for Dresdner Bank in Germany. Customers received this money box as a gift when they opened a bank account.
The name of the elephant, DRUMBO! It is a combination of 3 words: "Dresden", "Dumbo" and "Jumbo". This name was picked out from more than 1.600 proposals from employees of Dresdner Bank.
The original color of Drumbo was green. Today Drumbo is yellow and usually advertises as a piggy bank for Commerzbank (Commerzbank took over Dresdner Bank in 2008).
They came in 3 sizes (small, medium and large) and are available in different colors: white, black, yellow, red, green, ...
The elephants with the logo from Dresdner bank are the original versions. If no logo is available, you probably have a reproduction/new version. There are also porcelain elephants, designed by höchst.
If you want to buy an original elephant, with the Dresdner bank logo, the price for a small elephant is situated around 20€-30€, 30€-40€ for the medium and for the large more than 40€.
And what about Colani? Nearly everyone refers to Colani as the designer. This is however false and confirmed by Commerzbank on their blog! The Bank mascot was designed by a Munich-based design agency, Design Institut GmbH.
In addition, A Japanese website (a fan from Colani) interviewed Colani who says that he did not design the elepant. You can find the article on the next link. Luigi Colani did however design an elephant for caparol, a paint company.
There has been (and still is) many confusion about the designer, I think the mistery has been solved! :)
Source pictures: JO JE BIN
Source text: Commerzbank